Sunday, June 2, 2013

Week of June 2 2013: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Life Goes On!

Dear Family,

I really mean that, and I hope you all know how much I think about and love you. This week was pretty great. We got to meet with a lot of our members and spend great time with them, talk with some old and new people, and try to find some other ones. We're having a branch conference in a few weeks, and so our branch president, who I don't think I've told you guys much about, asked us to try to invite lots of people, especially less active members. We don't have a lot of information about people, and they're all really busy---so we tried to contact a lot of them. One of them is named Sister Shin, and another is Sister Eame (probably not really spelled like that, but it sounds really close). They're both moms, and are really busy with their kids all the time, so we've never actually been able to meet them before in real life. But it was amazing how kind and nice they were even just talking to them. I could tell how hard they work, and what great people they are, and hopefully we'll be able to talk to them soon. We also met with our ward mission leader on Thursday, which we do every week, usually at the church, and pretty short---but this week we were able to go to his house, which was really nice. His son is also really nice---they're both named Brother Pock (also not the way it's usually spelled, but it sounds right), and the younger one just recently graduated from high school, which here is a big deal. I think maybe I've mentioned it kind of before, but high school students here work really hard, which I guess you might expect. There's a high school pretty close to our house, which we walk by pretty often going to/coming from other places, and usually even at 8:50 or so when we come home the lights are still on and people have regular class time. They also go to classes on Saturday pretty much at the same time, and on Sunday they have voluntary personal study time. And when they graduate, they have to take a big huge exam---I know it's not that different, but basically people here work really hard, especially students. But they're also really fun and awesome. But anyway, we went to their house and ate dinner together first, which was really great---lots of things called 부침개 (boo chim-ge), which just means fried things---kind of like pancakes with vegetables, tofu, and lots of other stuff like that in them. We talked together a lot about Brother Pock's mission---he served in Seoul, and had a lot of hard experiences, but learned a lot, and loves to share about it. After we ate, his wife, who made everything really well, brought out a traditional instrument she plays that I'd never seen before. It's basically a long piece of wood that's curved a bit, with strings running up and down it, suspended over pegs kind of placed diagonally. It's hard to explain, but basically it was really great---I had no idea she did anything like that. She played some traditional Korean songs, and also "Obla-dee Obla-da". It was really cool---we didn't have enough time to do the whole meeting in the end, but we got to know their family a lot better and spend some really good time together.

On Friday we met again with the guy I've been telling you guys about. He's really nice and friendly---we talked more about his family, and things like that, and the Book of Mormon with our testimonies that we gave him last time. He actually said pretty openly that he's not very interested, and felt kind of pressured when we gave that to him. It was kind of abrupt, even though he said it in a nice way---but I guess I kind of had seen it coming before. I just hope he knows from what we've talked about how much God loves him, and was able to feel that when we talked to him. Then yesterday we went to another member's house, Brother Moon, who I think I've talked about before. There's actually a missionary who served here a few years ago staying with them for a few weeks, so we met him, and then another member who was less active for a long time, but who first heard about the church from that missionary, and he came, too. We ate together, also lots of side-dishes, really good food, and talked for a long time about missionary work. That member wants to go on a mission, and Brother Moon talked about his experiences, too. It was really great. I was able to see how much missionary work and the gospel brought all of them together, and thought about how much it's blessed me---and all of you. I still think about all of you, and all the things I've experienced so far, every day, and I'm always so grateful. I know that God has given me so much through you all and everyone around me, and I'm always grateful for that---I just hope I can do what he needs me to do here. I hope you're all happy, and know how much I love you and miss you. Keep it up.